Atlanta Falcons: Marcus Mariota takes home well-deserved honor

Before the season kicked off for the Atlanta Falcons, their first with a brand new true starting quarterback since Matt Ryan, many had concerns about the performance of Marcus Mariota. While the early losses to the Saints and Rams could be chalked up to his late game turnovers, the converse side of it is that it clouds up his performance prior, which honestly has been much better than we anticipated.

And the rest of the NFL is starting to take notice.

Following the Week Six victory over the San Francisco 49ers in which he completed 92% of his passes and accounted for three of the Falcons’ four touchdowns in the 28-14 victory, the 28-year-old signalcaller received the NFL’s Offensive Player of the Week award in the NFC for the week.

Again, before the season started, many were understandably curious about Mariota replacing Matt Ryan in Atlanta, and those were justified early in the year. A former second overall pick on his third team? With what many dubbed the “worst roster” in football?

Yet, Mariota didn’t care about the pressure. Rather, he did what he’s supposed to do: play football. Sure, he’s dealt with some turnover issues, primarily involving handoffs to running backs, his style of play is the equivalent of night and day compared to last year’s team. Last year was lucky to make 7-10 their final record, and lest we forget, when they played the “good” teams, they got slaughtered. This time around, they’ve played a style of football which not only works, it’s made individuals take notice that maybe the Falcons can beat anyone.

The main thing that probably got everyone more heated than normal might’ve been the philosophy of the game today: the hyper-offensive approach which doesn’t follow the old school tradition of pounding the rock and preventing your opponent from snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.

And while Mariota’s passing numbers are still middle of the pack (61.3 completion percentage, 1,055 passing yards, six TDs, four INTs, 59.2 QBR), his ability to move the pocket with his legs is what’s opening up this offense. Furthermore, while his “off target” percentage is high, most sites would be remiss to mention that when a quarterback is running the direction they throw from, throwing back across their body does offer reduced accuracy as a consequence.

That said, given this team’s composition and suddenly being in a very subpar division (which admittedly they could be 2-0 if certain things happened), one thing is clear:

Marcus Mariota is the quarterback the 2022 Atlanta Falcons needed. And let’s continue to support this leader of men.